On Reading and Creating Digital/Social Media

 READING SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is a digital form that serves communicative purposes. This is a relatively new visual and verbal text. When one thinks of social media, they often think of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other digital applications through which “social media” is shared. Anyone with a compatible electronic device is a creator in these shared interconnected digital platforms. Although the genre of text is new, it has quickly developed and expanded to include billions of people, as well as created pieces. With so many participants, thousands of texts in thousands of forms are created and experienced every day. These questions will help the social media consumer to do so critically.

What is the piece’s form? What are its components?

Why did the creator choose to incorporate the pieces they did? There are a variety of forms of social media. A piece may include verbal, visual, and/or auditory components. Perceiving the structure of the social media and the form that it takes permits the consumer to understand the feel of the piece and the emotions that it may communicate. Experiencing the various components is important to puzzling together the whole item. The individual parts could be crucial to telling a bigger story or message. For example, NASA’s #AYearInSpace documented the astronaut Scott Kelly’s every day for a year on Twitter. The astronaut used hashtags (a form of “tagging” one’s posts with relevant information) and images paired with a short caption to communicate and share his experience with thousands of people. Each component spoke a “digital language” that added to the piece’s composition.

What message does the piece seek to communicate? Who is the piece’s audience?

Social media can have a variety of intentions and audiences. Those that create social media are often portraying their life or experiences. It can also be advertising a product, communicating a message to a particular individual, responding to another instance of social media, or sharing opinions. An essential part of engaging with social media is to consider who the piece is meant for. The audience influences the creation (and consumption) of the piece heavily. It’s important to determine the intention of the piece to understand its purpose and how effectively it accomplishes it.

Another important component of the message is its tone. Because social media often more closely resembles everyday human speech (in comparison to novels and poetry), it also can more easily convey a plethora of underlying tones that can sometimes convey sub-meanings or messages. This could include sarcasm, passive aggression, seeking attention, curiosity, or kindness. It is critical to seek to understand these hidden messages so that the consumer can perceive the “full picture” of the piece. When the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” took social media platforms by storm, people would post a video of themself dumping ice cold water on their head in support of research to help those with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. At first glance, the video has no connection to research for those with ALS. However, with further interaction, the consumer receives the underlying charitable message that the piece seeks to convey through a visual medium depicting a repeated action.

Source: Top 10 Powerful Moments That Shaped Social Media History Over the Last 20 Years